L a - b e a u t é - s a u v e r a - l e - m o n d e ~ D o s t o ï e v s k i

L a - b e a u t é - s a u v e r a - l e - m o n d e  ~  D o s t o ï e v s k i



Friday, October 6, 2023

The king's children - three portraits by Jean Clouet, circa 1522



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Charlotte (23 October 1516, Château d'Amboise - 18 September 1524, Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye), the second child and second daughter of François I and his wife Claude. Following the death of her older sister, the three-year-old Louise, in 1518, Charlotte took her place as the fiancée of King Carlos I of Spain under the Treaty of Noyon, but she died of measles at the age of seven.


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François (28 February 1518, Château d'Amboise - 10 August 1536, Château de Tournon), the third child and first son of the king, was dauphin of France and, after 1524, duc de Bretagne. When he was eight years old, he and his younger brother, Henri, were exchanged as hostages for their father, François I, who had been captured at the Battle of Pavia. They would be hostages for three years. He later died at the age of eighteen, possibly from tuberculosis, though there was contemporary suspicion of poisoning.


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A later inscription misidentified the subject of the portrait as being Madeleine's older sister, Charlotte.

Madeleine (10 August 1520, Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye - 7 July 1537, Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh), the fifth child and third daughter of the royal couple. She briefly became Queen of Scotland as the first wife of King James V. The marriage was arranged in accordance with the Treaty of Rouen, and they were married at Notre-Dame de Paris in January 1537, despite reservations over her failing health. She died in July of that same year at the age of sixteen, only six months after the wedding and less than two months after arriving in Scotland, resulting in her poignant nickname, the "Summer Queen".


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Jean "Janet" Clouet (1480 - 1541), miniaturist and painter who worked in France during the High Renaissance. Likely a native of the Southern Netherlands - his actual name was probably Cloet - 1516 marks his first recorded appearance at the court of François I. He lived for some time in Tours, where he married the daughter of a jeweler; their son was the future court painter François Clouet. And in 1523 he was made a valet de chambre by the king and given a stipend. His brother, known as Clouet de Navarre, was in the service of the king's sister, Marguerite d'Angoulême.



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